The Rachael Ray keffiyeh story: a ridiculous play in three acts, plenty of scenes and a (cancelled) commercial break

Act 1

Rachael Ray, a cute-and-clueless daytime TV presenter (with a mildly irritating show that would do stuff like inviting Matthew McCounaughey to taste her stew) stars in the Dunkin Donuts ad campaign, wearing a black and white scarf that vaguely looks like a keffiyeh. Very vaguely.

What happens afterwards is sheer ridicule: she is 'outed' (pfff...) by wanking ultra-conservative right-wing bloggers of the type of Michelle Malkin (a 'white America' and 'let's deport foreigners' enthusiast, who despite being half Japanese, wrote a toilet paper-like book praising racial profiling of the Japanese after WW2 - you know the type, the token Asian woman on Fox News? Once described by a fellow Fox News commentator, Geraldo Rivera, to be "the most vile, hateful commentator I have ever seen. She actually believes that neighbours should start snitching on neighbours and that we should deport people") and Little Green Footballs who scolded Ray for 'supporting terrorism' by wearing the keffiyeh, which, in their definition, is the "traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad" (says Malkin).

There's a lot to say about that. First, that the neo-cons are so fresh out of whining material that they're screening TV ads for something to bitch about. Next time they'll be complaining that NBA players have their shirt numbers written in Arab digits and will say it's a plot to convert America to radical Islam..

Second, that someone actually listens to their completely pointless argument. Seriously, these people are so outlandish that we should almost automatically disregard their arguments, and let their blogs become the racist forums where their little Aryan friends can go say something nasty about (Muslims/ Arabs/ Democrats/ Jews/ Immigrants/ Environmentalists/ Obama) and feel like they've achieved something with their day (besides wanking).

Third, is that we're actually debating that...

Oh wait. That's the next act.

Act 2

Dunkin Donuts declares says that the scarf wasn't a keffyieh but "a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design" which is probably true (take a good look at the scarf, it's not even checkered); then it freaks out and pulls the campaign offline altogether.

Some people - Americans and foreigners alike - try to educate the obviously ignorant mob, by explaining to people what the heck a keffiyeh is:

"Kaffiyehs are worn every day on the street by Palestinians and other people in the Middle East — by people going to work, going to school, taking care of their families, and just trying to keep warm", says Amal Bishara of Chicago U. "I think that a right-wing blogger making an association between a kaffiyeh and terrorism is just an example of how so much of the complexity of Arab culture has been reduced to a very narrow vision of the Arab world on the part of some people in the U.S."

That wasn't the end of it, though.

First, because rather than focusing on the fact - that the keffiyeh may represent Palestine or Palestinian resistance but the accusation that it has anything to do with terrorism is ludicrous - we let the debate go to the 'did she or did she not know that she was wearing a keffiyeh?' thereby wasting a good opportunity to hold the ultra-conservatives to their lies.

Second, because the media dealt with the issue in a seriously ridiculous way. BBC News shamefully titled "US chain drops 'terror scarf' ad", de-facto endorsing the extremist version of the story. Terror scarf my arse. Idiots.

Act 3...

...is still unfolding.

Sensible people start to feel outraged, both because we've allowed extremists in the type of Malkin to actually have a influential say in the public debate and because we've become we've let the level of the political debate stoop to politically correct wussiness (remember when calling anything 'French' meant that it was bad? Like "I can't vote for John Kerry, he looks French"?).

See, for example, the Foreign Policy blog pointing out both the ridicule of the debate and of its arguments. (idiots read Malkin, sensible people are more found around FP, even sensible neo-cons... there are few out there.)

Intelligent people are driving back the debate to what it's really about: xenophobia and racism.

"People have hidden agendas and they somehow associate the kaffiyeh with Islam and terrorism," said Habeeb Ahmed, president of the Islamic Center of Long Island. "It's not a religious symbol. … How can a piece of cloth be a symbol of a terrorist identity?"

(Me: hmm... if it's a KKK hood, perhaps?)

Katie Halper pokes good fun at Malkin's arguments as well as her taste in clothes - probably the most entertaining article I've read in this whole mess).

MuslimMatters.org predicts a US boycott of rice, "a signature food of terrorists (and communists too)."

And a Facebook campaign asks people to wear a keffiyeh tomorrow - or at least to have their online avatar wear one!

And Jeffrey Goldberg has good some fashion suggestions for Rachael Ray.

Pff. All that for a "black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design".